Toyota’s court win on worker vote comes too late

Eight months too late,Toyota has won the right to ask its workers to take a cut in pay and conditions to help save the company’s factory and their jobs.

In December last year, as the local car manufacturing industry was teetering on the edge of the abyss, Toyota moved to ask workers to accept sweeping changes to the workplace, including a reduction in the Christmas shutdown period and removal of some allowances.

But the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) sought and won a court order blocking the move, saying it breached a condition in the company’s enterprise bargaining agreement that forbade any “further claims" once the industrial deal had been struck.

As a result Toyota could not implement the changes it wanted and, on top of that, faced a potential penalty for a breach of its agreement.

On Friday, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the original decision after finding that the clause was invalid under the Fair Work Act.

In a potentially important judgment for the rights of employers, the appeal judges found that although the proposals from Toyota constituted a “further claim" the clause that banned such claims was inconsistent with the Fair Work Act.

Toyota welcomes judgment

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It is not expected Toyota will press for the cuts now that it has announced it will cease manufacturing.

“We welcome today’s full federal court decision and are pleased that thecourt confirmed that we did not act unlawfully," a Toyota spokeswoman said.

AMWU vehicle division national secretary David Smith said the union was “considering the decision and its ramifications carefully".

The Appeal court judges noted they were assisted in making their judgment by submissions made by Employment Minister
Eric Abetz
.

Australian Industry Group national industrial relations director
Stephen Smith
said many employers had “further claims" clauses in their agreements and they would have been concerned had the original judgment stood.

“It is an important decision, not only for Toyota but for other employers who have similar clauses," he said.

Mr Smith said the clauses were introduced to prevent ongoing claims from unions and the appeal judgment would restore a sensible interpretation of their reach in binding employers for making changes in the workplace.